


Heat

by moonshoeswhovian



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blind Date, F/M, Hate to Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:47:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6835933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonshoeswhovian/pseuds/moonshoeswhovian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and then there was him. Him with his arrogant smirk and the facial hair he refused to get rid of. Who sat back in his chair and watched the chaos with amusement. Oh, yes. Robin from HR was the bane of her existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Set it up

Regina loathed department head meetings. Sitting in a room full of people bickering about how to run the company was not her idea of a productive afternoon. They were all imbeciles. Good at their jobs, but all fools if they believed they could tell her how to run her own company. David from public relations was going on about hosting –another- charity ball (they needed to maintain their good reputation in the eyes of the public), Leroy from accounting was grumbling about how much money they were spending on paper paperwork (everything is better when we use technology for it, right?), Ruby from marketing was already on board with David’s idea and was brainstorming how they should advertise, and then there was him. Him with his arrogant smirk and the facial hair he refused to get rid of. Who sat back in his chair and watched the chaos with amusement. Oh, yes. Robin from HR was the bane of her existence. Robin Locksley thrived on her frustration. The worse things got in the conference room the more smug he got. But today he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing her snap. She was tired and had not had the time to stop and eat lunch, which meant that if she didn’t get out of this room quickly her frustration was going to end in tears today rather than a raised voice.  
“Locksley!” she turned to him, “Mind wrapping up this meeting for me? I have elsewhere to be.”  
Gathering her things she stood to leave. When she turned to address the room she could see his smirk was gone, replaced with thinly veiled concern. Ugh, just the thought of his concern for her in this moment made her despise him more.  
The rest of the room had quieted down considerably, waiting for her to explain what was happening.  
“Mr. Locksley is going to be finishing this meeting for me, I have an urgent matter to attend to. Please let him know of your remaining concerns and I am sure he will take excellent notes so that I may address them. Leave your department reports with him as well as any additional staffing requests.”  
The concern on his face hardened into a glare once he realized that she was leaving him to control this mess. With a smirk forming on her face she turned around and left, hearing the chatter start back up the second she was out the door.  
\- - - - - - - - - - - - -  
Regina stepped through the door and was immediately greeted by a familiar voice.  
“You’re early today. We weren’t expecting you for another couple of hours.”  
Regina turned to the woman and smiled. “Well, as the boss you can get away with skipping out a little early sometimes.”  
The woman laughed, “In that case we are glad you are he-” She was cut off by a high pitched squeal.  
“Mommy!” A little voice yelled from the door to the playroom. A little boy with a brown mop of hair was standing on his toes looking at them over the gate.  
“Hello my handsome prince!” Regina cooed as she walked to the doorway, sweeping the little boy into her arms. “Have you had a good day?” she asked him.  
“Mhmm!” He told her excitedly. “I was a dragon and I eated fire!”  
“Oh my goodness! A dragon! What happened to my little boy?”  
“I’m right here Mommy!” He giggled.  
“Phew! I thought I was going to have to fight a fire eating dragon to get him back.” Regina said seriously. “Were you a good boy for Miss Mary?”  
“Mhmm!” He said again, wiggling for her to let him down before running off to play some more with his friends.  
“He is very cute. Takes after his mom I think.” Mary Margaret said, suddenly beside her.  
“Yes.” Regina replied distractedly.  
“When are you going to make another one?” Her friend asked.  
She blinked out of her daze. “What!?” she coughed.  
“When are you going to make yourself another kid?” the other woman asked casually.  
“Not any time soon,” Regina scoffed. “There would need to be a man in the picture for that.”  
“Well, now that you mention it…” Mary Margaret began, “I have a friend I want to fix you up with.” At a slight annoyed glare from the other woman she continued. “He is one of the daycare parents just like you. Except not you, obviously,” she rambled beginning to get nervous. “It wouldn’t hurt to try?”  
Regina rolled her eyes and sighed. This was not the first time she had tried to set her up. “Which one’s his kid?”  
Mary Margaret smiled and clapped her hands. “Roland!” She called.  
A little boy with very curly brown hair and adorable dimples that had Regina melting ran over. He smiled when he saw her.  
“Gina!” he squealed as he realized who was standing next to his teacher.  
“Hello Roland” she said, ruffling his curls fondly.  
On the days when Regina had a little extra time during the work day, after a meeting got cancelled or if she had scheduled a long lunch break, she often came in to play with her son Henry. Henry and Roland played together often and she had grown to love the little boy.  
“Tomorrow is Friday” her friend continued. “Dinner, 8 o’clock. That little Italian place on Main Street. David and I are taking care of the babysitting.” And with that she walked away, leaving a conflicted Regina to wonder what she was getting herself into.


	2. Give it the air

By the time Regina had reached her office the next morning she couldn’t say she had forgotten entirely about the date, but it was definitely one of the farthest things from her mind. Henry had asked for a story before bed, and knowing fairytales were his favorite she’d read him Snow White, only to be woken up a couple of hours later by a crying three year old who was afraid the Evil Queen was going to take his mommy away because she was the “prettiest mommy in the whole world” and the Evil Queen wouldn’t like that. As touched as she was that her baby had told her she was the prettiest, she would have liked to have gotten her beauty sleep to keep it that way. Instead she was up every couple of hours when Henry would wake up and call out for her to make sure she was still there. When she dropped him off at daycare she had to pinky promise him that she wouldn’t let the Evil Queen come and steal her while she was away. When she was finally running into her office she ran straight past her secretary and was already bending over a filing cabinet when she heard someone clear their throat and realized they had been in there waiting for her.   
She straightened up and smoothed her pencil skirt before turning to greet them with a smile. “What can I-“she started and then paused, upon seeing who it was. “What can I do for you Mr. Locksley?” She finished.  
He was sitting in a chair on the other side of the desk, looking at a spot on the wall in the other direction. When he heard her start to speak he turned to look at her, unable to help himself from quickly glancing down and back up her body, appreciation for her tight pencil skirt and airy lowcut blouse quickly building. He had been happy with the view of her backside when she had been bending over, and this view was definitely just as good, despite the obviously false polite smile that graced her lips.   
He offered her the stack of papers he had been holding. “Requests from your loyal subjects yesterday, Your Majesty.” A smirk forming on his face before softening as he continued. “I wrote down everything that was brought up, but wrote everything actually important on a separate sheet so you could discard the other one if you wanted. All of the department reports are in there except mine. Mine I already placed on your desk so you would maybe look at it first? There are a couple of important matters I would like your input on.”  
While he had been talking she had sat down behind her desk and began to flip through the pages of the reports, finding the two pages he had written the notes from the meeting on and nodding in approval. “I don’t have any appointments until this afternoon if you have some time to go over that now.” She said, picking up his report and beginning to read.   
He nodded. “I do. It has come to my attention that a senior member of staff has been having quite the affair with a member of the junior staff in one of the other departments.”   
Regina froze and slowly lifted her gaze to lock with his. “Who?” she hissed, eyes narrowing.   
“Robert Gold and Belle French”  
Regina sat back in her chair and brought her hand up to run through her hair. “How did we find out?”  
“You know what they say about the copy room,” Robin laughed awkwardly. “I actually was the one who walked in on them first. They were still in a fairly decent state of dress considering where things seemed to have been headed.”   
She sighed. “He knows the rules Robin. He can see whoever he likes, but as soon as he plays around in the office I have to get involved. He won’t like it but I think he needs to be put on probation.”  
“Those were my thoughts as well,” Robin agreed. “I will call him in for a meeting today. Would you like to be included in that as well m’lady?”  
Regina hummed and stood from her chair. “I suppose I should be there. Maybe together we can handle him without too much of a problem. When you meet with Miss French you can do that on your own. Is it just a warning for her?”  
“I’d like to get a better feel for the situation but it will most likely be a warning for her, yes.” He spoke as he too stood from his seat. “After all this is the first time she has been involved in this type of situation, unlike Robert.”  
She hummed again making her way around to stand in front of him, leaning back against her desk. Robin took a step towards her, “What time works well for you, Regina?”  
She took a look at her schedule on her desk over her shoulder, turning back to answer him and found her eyes drawn to his broad chest. He gaze lingered over his chest and arms, then up to the facial hair she claimed to despise but secretly found knee-weakening with his jaw-line and heart melting dimples. She began to wonder if he had another set… elsewhere… but shook herself out of it and cleared her throat before answering him.  
“Eleven will work. I’ll meet you in your office this time.” With that she walked over and held the door open, indicating it was time for him to leave.  
The rest of her day went by rather quickly. The meeting with Robin and Gold went about as well as they had anticipated. Gold storming out, Robin scribbling his notes angrily and muttering under his breath, and Regina excusing herself to take a much needed nap on the couch in her office during her lunch hour. The rest of her afternoon was filled with meetings she wished she would have postponed until next week and reading through the department reports and deciding what she needed to actually fix and what they were just whining about unnecessarily.   
\---  
So it’s understandable that when she arrived to pick-up Henry and Mary Margaret reminded her of the date it turned out that she had completely spaced it. Mary offered to meet them at Regina’s house after the last of the remaining kids had been picked up, promising she would be there before Regina had to leave. When she finally did show up Regina had tried on most everything in her closet and had finally settled on a royal blue dress with a zipper that wrapped around and ended on the front of her thigh. After grabbing her black strappy pumps and quickly sliding them on, she checked her makeup in the mirror one last time and kissed Henry good night, promising her little prince that she would be home before he even woke up and that Miss Mary would still be there until she got back. When he was settled Mary shooed her out the door, knowing that she was already running late. Reassuring her that she had it all taken care of and that she should go out and have a good time.   
When Regina arrived at the restaurant she stood outside and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and stood there on the sidewalk, taking deep breaths, repeating to herself that it was just one date. One little date and then she could go home and she didn’t even have to go out with him again. That it wasn’t too soon to start dating again. Deep breath in, deep breath out, opening her eyes, letting a soft smile form on her face, and she finally opened the door, and walked in.


End file.
